* It's not unlimited of course, they explicitly do not permit tethering, and the general sentiment seems to be that they get feisty at around 2 GB (although some say they've used up to 5 GB without getting a call/text from them). All of this is fine by me for my uses.

Since it runs on ATT's network (with full HSPA+ speeds), you don't technically have to have your ATT phone unlocked. Mine is currently still locked, pending my last bill with ATT. For whatever reason, they won't let me pay the ETF and authorize the unlock until they generate my bill at the end of the month.

The issue using ST is that you have to figure out a workaround for editing the APN settings to get data and MMS. http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/ ... alk_iPhone lists several. I really don't want to hassle with jailbreaking and prefer to update to new iOS versions immediately.

What I did was purchase a TMobile micro-SIM with starter minutes and do the SIM-swap method. You go to the General > Network settings screen, swap the SIM, the Cellular Data settings menu will appear, enter in all APN stuff, and then swap the ST SIM back in. Exiting out of that screen makes the Cellular Info or Data or whatever option disappear, but it saved all those settings you entered. Data and MMS immediately worked.

Using the profiles at http://www.unlockit.co.nz/ unfortunately only fixes the data settings because, for some asinine reason, you can't provision the MMS APN settings in the Apple iPhone Configuration tool.

But so far, so good on ST. The negative (besides having to do the APN workaround) is losing visual voicemail, which is fine for me since I started using Google Voice for my voicemail on this phone and there are a surprising number of third party VM apps in the app store. However since I'm paying literally half of what I was on ATT, the ETF difference will be even in a few months and I'm probably not upgrading to the next iPhone for at least another year.

I have two questions:

1) Do properly carrier-unlocked phones expose the Cellular Data settings menu or is this still dependent on the carrier or SIM regardless of whether it's unlocked? T-Mobile SIMs obviously expose it, but I truly don't know if this carrier-dependent. My sense is that Apple doesn't expose it by default.

2) Do custom APN setting survive a device restore and/or OS updates? I assume they'd survive an OS update, but my suspicion is that I'd have to customize the APN after a restore.

So I answered parts of my questions as I just got the official AT&T unlock completed on my iPhone 4S.

Quote:

1) Do properly carrier-unlocked phones expose the Cellular Data settings menu or is this still dependent on the carrier or SIM regardless of whether it's unlocked?

After completing the unlock process, which requires a restore through iTunes, the Cellular Data settings menu still doesn't not appear. This means APN settings are not editable on a carrier-unlocked phone on Straight Talk. Based on my interwebs research, this is probably a result of Apple not being an official ST partner, meaning they do not have a ST plist to designate the available Settings options nor set the proper default APN info. It's either defaulting to the AT&T carrier plist or using a default plist, which is speculated to be limited (no APN settings exposed) based on general carrier pressure. The ideal solution would be for Apple to release a carrier plist for Straight Talk that unlocked the settings menus necessary to make it work withouts workarounds and/or simple set the proper APN data settings based on the presence of a Straight Talk SIM.

Quote:

2) Do custom APN setting survive a device restore and/or OS updates? I assume they'd survive an OS update, but my suspicion is that I'd have to customize the APN after a restore.

I did not have to customize the APN settings again after the backup and restore from iTunes backup that's necessary to unlock the phone. MMS and cellular data worked fine after the restore. I used the iBackup Bot demo to inspect the proper plists in the most recent backup to see if the custom APN "stuck", and they appeared to reflect the custom APN settings.http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/ ... ilbreaking

Presumable, erasing your iPhone and not restoring would leave you without the proper APN settings and I'm not sure if an iCloud restore pushes those plists back down but I don't have the time to test that right now.

edit: My bill, according to the customer service rep, also reflected a $7 credit and did not have the ETF listed as due. I'll be interested to see if they actually bill me for that at some point.

There was an article about prepaid on this site and MMS came up. They used an unlock website from New Zealand to do it, but I can't find the reference to it. The website if memory serves is this one: http://www.unlockit.co.nz/unlockit/

That site is great but since it's just giving you a profile made with the iPhone Configuration tool, it's limited to only controlling the data APN and cannot control the MMS settings. I used the SIM swap method described there to just set all options and skip the profile part.

That site is great but since it's just giving you a profile made with the iPhone Configuration tool, it's limited to only controlling the data APN and cannot control the MMS settings. I used the SIM swap method described there to just set all options and skip the profile part.

You might want to look at the second link I linked to, did you try this?

Quote:

If you want MMS to work as well and not jailbreak the iPhone then you can use the “SIM” Swap method but this only seems to work on the iPhone 4S. People with 3GS/3G/4 have reported it doesn’t work at all.

To do this you will need a T-Mobile sim .It doesn’t need to be activated and can be easily acquired from many places around the USA (I have been told)

- Go to Settings->General->Network- Place T-Mobile SIM into iPhone- A New Menu will come up (Cellular Data Settings)- Go into this Menu and make sure the Details are are as below (Don’t exit)- SIM Swap back to the Straight talk SIM Card- Exit Cellular Data Settings Menu (Click Network up the top)- The Cellular Data Settings Menu will Disappear now.- MMS Works

1) Do properly carrier-unlocked phones expose the Cellular Data settings menu or is this still dependent on the carrier or SIM regardless of whether it's unlocked? T-Mobile SIMs obviously expose it, but I truly don't know if this carrier-dependent. My sense is that Apple doesn't expose it by default.

I might still be able to help. I have a carrier unlocked 3GS, and I don't see a setting that allows me to access the APN (I'm looking at General->Network). Looking at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2283 , the answer for AT&T unlocked 3GS is no, you can't see the cellular settings.

EDIT: Sorry if you're tracking this thread and watching the shenanigans I'm doing. Still new to the forum, usually just comment on the articles.

It's cool. I took the time to talk to call both ST and AppleCare to see if there is an official solution. Both claimed the other needed to set the option to either customize the cellular data option or automatically set the APN settings at provisioning time.

The bottom line is that ST isn't an official Apple partner (and not an international carrier like T-Mobile, which is why their SIMs expose those settings) and so the ST SIM IDs itself as an AT&T SIM and uses those settings, which are obviously not correct or applicable. The only solution is for Apple to liberalize their carrier settings to accommodate more MVNOs or officially detect and support ST SIMs. Of note, the AppleCare person said that he expects that more and more people will have this issue as they activate on Straight Talk, which hinted that they might be watching the situation. So fingers-crossed for a carrier update at some point.

I filed feedback with a request to officially support Straight Talk, which is probably all that can be done at this point.

That's the extent of the energy I'm doing to spend on this, as someone who apparently has the initiative to dick around with this for several hours but doesn't want to jailbreak . The SIM swap (or iBackupBot method) works, but it's not something I'd recommend to a normal person looking to save a few bucks.

I ordered two micro SIM's from ST Friday, they will be here early this week. I plan on moving myself and my wife to ST. I had researched how to get iPhones to work with ST and for voice and data its pretty simple by going to the NZ site listed above. However, MMS settings appear to be a bit harder to fix. One method is the T-Mobile SIM method mentioned above, the other is to use a 3rd party program that apparently can upload backed up config files from your computer to the iPhone after you've modified them for the correct ST MMS settings.

Also, it should be noted that I couldn't find one instance of anyone with a non-iPhone 4S being successful using the T-Mobile SIM method. Some rumors point to it maybe working on a regular iPhone 4, but it appears for those with 3GS or 3G you're out of luck using that method.

Mine is currently still locked, pending my last bill with ATT. For whatever reason, they won't let me pay the ETF and authorize the unlock until they generate my bill at the end of the month.

I am in this position now and it is maybe the stupidest thing that has ever happened to me. I've already cancelled the original contracted service! I'm not on that plan anymore! Let me pay you guys money. *headdesk*

In my experience, the APN settings options are not seen even on carriers that are officially supported by Apple if the phone was originally locked to AT&T and AT&T later unlocked it. The iPhone Configuration Utility or Profile Manager (started/enabled from Server.app on OS X Lion Server) may help push the APN settings into the device.